On the weekend in Trinidad you often went to a party and if you knew someone with a car, you went to the beach.
The reason I say “you often went to a party” was the that the rules for being invited to a party in Trinidad were rather loose. The essential rule was that if you knew someone that was invited to a party, you were also invited to the party. However, if you carried that rule to its natural conclusion you could say that if you even knew that a party existed and you knew where it was, you would go because you would assume that you probably knew someone that was going to the party. Of course if you went to the party and didn’t know anyone, it really wouldn’t matter because everyone would assume you knew someone.
The other reason these sort of loose rules worked is that unlike most Canadian parties where people would sit down and talk to each other, that wasn’t the main purpose of the Trinidadian party. In fact, chances are, they had removed all the furniture so you couldn’t sit down. You might try to talk to people but it would often be difficult because of the loud dance music.
The other difference is that with a Canadian party that includes dancing, people still dance to rock & roll from their high school days. I never went to a high school dance. We lived in a tiny (6 street) suburb out highway 16 in Ottawa. You had to be highly motivated to take the bus into a high school dance and my motivation level was zero (it never even entered my mind).
Music at a West Indian party was always a mixture of Motown, South American, a touch or Reggae and if it was anywhere near Carnival time – jump-up. It didn’t matter if you had never danced in your life because if you went to one of these parties, there would be 3-year olds to 83-year olds dancing and at some point your feet would just start moving on their own.
The other thing about these parties was that because of the loose rules, there were always a lot of people and it would typically last until 3 am. If they served food, they wouldn’t serve it until midnight.
During the time that Marilyn and I were together in Canada we had a lot of West Indian friends – who had parties. We had one at our house. The basement was finished but unfurnished which was perfect. I had invited one Canadian couple who assumed it was a dinner party – so they hadn’t eaten. They didn’t know the rule that – yes dinner was served – but it wasn’t served until midnight. The basic logic was to force people to stay longer so that it would be a “good” party and it wouldn’t be a “good” party if anyone left before 2 am. 130 people showed up. When you arrived at the front door, the first thing you saw was the rum punch. My Canadian friends didn’t realize how much rum you could hide in a rum punch – so with an empty stomach they were not feeling very well and had to leave around 8 pm. The party hadn’t even got going by then. Food was served at midnight as usual and 7 am the next morning there were still half a dozen party goers sleeping on the floor and couch in the living room. We never had a party like that again but some people in Trinidad did it all the time.
There was one odd thing that happened at that party. One of the women had brought her 15-year old niece who was well developed for her age and seemed to be flirting with some of the married men. I didn’t think anything of it at the time but about a year later we bumped into the aunt and found out that she had left her husband. The story eventually came out. The aunt had brought the niece to Canada to get an education but it turns out that the aunt was not entirely aware of the education the niece was getting. The school contacted her and told her that her niece had been missing a lot of days from school. When the aunt checked the days missing from school, she found out that they coincided with the days her husband was off work.
Getting back to Trinidad: we occasionally spent time at the home of another Gomes family who lived about a block away from the Savannah. Mrs Gomes was always very welcoming. Raymond was a friend of the elder of the 3 daughters and Gerald (Raymond’s younger brother) eventually married the middle daughter. Mr Gomes came home from his shift at the airport one night and decided he wanted to have a party. He strung an extension cord up the street to the Savannah, set up a card table with a bottle of rum and with a speaker blasting music and 15 minutes later there was party going on.
One other thing that happened after spending another evening with the Gomes is I stepped out of their place and fell into a culvert and put a hole in my arm. There were no street lights and I simply forgot the culvert was there and took a step into mid-air. It was a few weeks before carnival and there were always a lot of carnival-related injuries that started coming into the emergency room at the hospital. As I waited to be stitched up the first man that came in to the waiting room had a head injury with blood flowing all down the front of his face. He made no attempt to clean it up because he appeared to be either proud of the injury or drunk or some combination of the two. The next man that came in had had his toes crushed by a steel band on wheels that went over the toes of one of his feet. Interesting.
WR Foster 